Cinnamon Fern Fiddlehead

This is Cinnamon Fern, still tightly wound up in a "fiddle-head." The "scroll" is about the size of a quarter.
On this day, May 15, 2006, most of the plants had already finished unrwrapping and their fronds were standing tall and wide, reaching the height of my waist as I walked by them. They were growing in a damp wooded valley along a small stream that feeds into the pond nearby.
I knew right away it was Cinnamon Fern when I saw the characteristic "cinnamon stick" frond growing within some of the individual plants. This sets Cinnamon Fern fern apart from its close relative, the Interupted Ferm. The cinamon stick frond is the reproductive frond, containing tissue that will soon produce spores. Shown here is a vegetative (non-reproductive) frond, which appears more green than the brownish colored reproductive frond. In the Interupted Fern, the reproductive structures are found on the regular leaf, "interupting" the green frond-lets with brownish spore-producing structures.